Thank you for Reading.

Please purchase a subscription to continue reading.

A subscription is required to continue reading.

Thank you for reading PressofAtlanticCity.com. If you are a current subscriber you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. Please click Sign Up or Login to activate your digital access. If not, please click Sign Up to subscribe and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information, or you can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 10 free articles.

Thank you for reading PressofAtlanticCity.com. Please click Get Started. If you are a current subscriber you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. If not, we ask that you purchase a subscription and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information, or you can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 10 free articles.

Thank you for Reading.

Thank you for Reading.
We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.

Thank you for Reading.

Please purchase a subscription to continue reading.

Thank you for reading PressofAtlanticCity.com. If you are a current subscriber you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. Please click Sign Up or Login to activate your digital access. If not, please click Sign Up to subscribe and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information, or you can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 10 free articles.

A subscription is required to continue reading.

Thank you for reading PressofAtlanticCity.com. Please click Get Started. If you are a current subscriber you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. If not, we ask that you purchase a subscription and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information, or you can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 10 free articles.

‘What the study found was the more that group rehab homes cluster, the less successful they are,’ said Atlantic City Councilman Jesse Kurtz, left. Kurtz and 6th Ward residents helped research for an ordinance passed last year that would limit the number of group sober living homes in an area.

"We've been at our house on Bartram Avenue for 25 years," explains Emma Escobar, a resident on the Lower Chelsea neighborhood. Escobar's family and other residents brought up concerns about multiple sober living homes opening within the 15 block neighborhood. (July 24, 2019)

Atlantic City Councilman Jesse Kurtz sits down with sixth ward residents John Sharra, Diego Escobar and Emma Escobar who brought up concerns about several sober living homes in the neighborhood and helped research for an ordinance that limits the number of sober living homes on a block. (July 24, 2019)

Atlantic City sixth ward Councilman Jesse Kurtz helped draft and submit an ordinance with residents of the Lower Chelsea neighborhood who had concerns about several sober living homes operating and opening in the area. (July 24, 2019)

"These are supposed to be self-regulated, self-managed, self sufficient and there was nonoe of that, said Diego Escobar of one of the now-abandoned Oxford sober living home on his block of Bartram Avenue. Escobar, along with his wife Emma and neighbor John Sharra talked about their support of a city ordinance to limit sober living homes within 600-feet of one another. (July 29, 2019)

John Sharra, Diego Escobar and Emma Escobar, residents of Atlantic City's Lower Chelsea neighborhood, talk about their concerns and why they support the ordinance to limit the number of sober living homes within the city. (July 29, 2019)

Atlantic City's law regulating sober living homes questioned

Residents of Atlantic City's 6th Ward came together to support an ordinance regulating the number of sober living homes that can operate within a 660-foot block radius.

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

Serenity House, a sober living home on Tallahassee Avenue, is run by the Hansen Foundation.

LAUREN CARROLL / Multimedia Reporter/

An Oxford House women’s sober living home sits among the other residential homes on the beach block of Bartram Avenue.

An Oxford House women's sober living home sits among the other residential homes on the beach block of Bartram Avenue. (July 29, 2019)

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

‘What the study found was the more that group rehab homes cluster, the less successful they are,’ said Atlantic City Councilman Jesse Kurtz, left. Kurtz and 6th Ward residents helped research for an ordinance passed last year that would limit the number of group sober living homes in an area.

LAUREN CARROLL / Multimedia Reporter

"We've been at our house on Bartram Avenue for 25 years," explains Emma Escobar, a resident on the Lower Chelsea neighborhood. Escobar's family and other residents brought up concerns about multiple sober living homes opening within the 15 block neighborhood. (July 24, 2019)

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

Atlantic City Councilman Jesse Kurtz sits down with sixth ward residents John Sharra, Diego Escobar and Emma Escobar who brought up concerns about several sober living homes in the neighborhood and helped research for an ordinance that limits the number of sober living homes on a block. (July 24, 2019)

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

Atlantic City sixth ward Councilman Jesse Kurtz helped draft and submit an ordinance with residents of the Lower Chelsea neighborhood who had concerns about several sober living homes operating and opening in the area. (July 24, 2019)

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

"These are supposed to be self-regulated, self-managed, self sufficient and there was nonoe of that, said Diego Escobar of one of the now-abandoned Oxford sober living home on his block of Bartram Avenue. Escobar, along with his wife Emma and neighbor John Sharra talked about their support of a city ordinance to limit sober living homes within 600-feet of one another. (July 29, 2019)

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

John Sharra, Diego Escobar and Emma Escobar, residents of Atlantic City's Lower Chelsea neighborhood, talk about their concerns and why they support the ordinance to limit the number of sober living homes within the city. (July 29, 2019)

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

A multi-family building on S. Raleigh Avenue was recently purchased by the Hansen Foundation to operate as a sober living home in Atlantic City.

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

LAUREN CARROLL
Multimedia Reporter

Two sober living homes are within feet of each other on the block of Tallahassee and Atlantic avenues in Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY — A local ordinance adopted last year regulating how close sober living homes can operate from one another is being put to the test in the city’s Chelsea neighborhood.

Your Morning Kickstart is delivered to your inbox 7 a.m. daily. Make sure you don’t miss out on the latest in news, entertainment, weather, and sports.
SUBSCRIBE HERE

The Hansen Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit that operates residential housing for those in drug and alcohol addiction recovery, purchased two properties — 16 S. Tallahassee Ave. and 114 S. Raleigh Ave. — whose locations could run afoul of a 2018 law restricting proximity of such facilities to 660 feet.

The two homes are each within the boundary of existing sober living facilities operated by Oxford House on Bartram and Atlantic avenues.

Some homeowners in Chelsea, with the support of their ward councilman, are pushing back against the expanding number of sober living homes in the neighborhood and want the law to be strictly enforced. They say their concerns about the number of sober living homes in the neighborhood center on the impact on safety and property values as well as the overall effectiveness of the facilities when they begin to cluster.

Jennifer Hansen, co-founder of the Hansen Foundation, said she believed the ordinance to be unlawful because it violates the federal Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Keith Davis, the foundation’s attorney, said his client does not want to pursue legal action and would rather reach an amicable solution with the city. Davis said there is “strong federal case law and statutes that protect the residents of these homes to be able to live where they want to live.”

“All we’re asking for is for these folks to be treated the same way any other family would be treated in any community,” he said. “We’re hopeful that we can achieve that understanding with the City of Atlantic City, and other communities, because the work that Hansen House is doing is really important.”

Hansen said the ordinance applies only to community residences that offer a range of in-house services and supervision, which differ from the state-sanctioned Oxford House locations that are peer-governed recovery homes.

“We’re trying to give (people) safe housing,” she said. “We’re trying to make that housing the highest standard of any sober living.”

A 2018 study conducted by the Walter Rand Institute at Rutgers University-Camden found the Hansen Foundation’s sober living homes had an 80% success rate of maintained sobriety after one year for residents.

“We teach recovering addicts how to get their life back and how to become adults and how to learn how to live again,” Hansen said. “Treatment works. But, you know, people need sober living, and they need well-run sober living houses.”

The Hansen Foundation purchased both properties in 2019, county property records show. The home on Tallahassee was bought for $395,000 and the one on Raleigh for $405,000.

Hansen said she already received an order from the city to vacate the Tallahassee Avenue home after relocating residents from a facility on Bartram Avenue. The foundation is in the process of renovating the multifamily home on Raleigh Avenue, she said.

A request to speak with the city’s licensing and inspections director, Dale Finch, received no response from the Mayor’s Office.

The Atlantic City ordinance has its genesis in regulations found in Florida, where residential treatment centers were beginning to cluster, said 6th Ward Councilman Jesse Kurtz, who represents Chelsea on City Council.

Kurtz said the primary concern in the neighborhood is that it could become a “de facto social services district” and “change the character of the neighborhood.”

In researching how communities in Florida responded, Kurtz and several Chelsea residents said they found a study from Delray Beach that indicated that the clustering of sober living homes had an adverse effect on recovery.

“It’s really not fair to any community to permit a situation under the name of help where a neighborhood becomes so concentrated and so clustered with these homes that it both damages the residential character of the neighborhood and hurts the people it’s designed to help,” Kurtz said. “This is a good law, and it should be enforced.”

Chelsea resident John Sharra said he was concerned about the safety of his family, which includes four children and his wife, because of a sober living home on the beach block of Bartram Avenue.

Diego and Emma Escobar have owned a summer home on Bartram Avenue for nearly 25 years. The couple said they met with Finch recently when they heard about the potential for another sober living home opening in the neighborhood.

“We’re not saying that sober living homes shouldn’t exist. We get it. We get them (needing to be) normalized into society so they can get back on their feet, working. It’s a good thing,” Emma Escobar said. “It’s the clustering that we’re concerned about and the density.”

The two houses operated by Hansen and the three operated by Oxford House are known recovery homes, but Kurtz conceded there could be more in the city of which officials are unaware.

Kurtz said he worked with the state Department of Community Affairs, which has oversight of Atlantic City following the 2016 takeover, to ensure the ordinance was both “common sense and compassionate.”

The DCA did not immediately respond to several questions about why the ordinance was adopted in Atlantic City or how it can be enforced.

Tags

I cover Atlantic City government and the casino industry since joining The Press in early 2018. I formerly worked as a politics & government reporter for NJ Herald and received the First Amendment: Art Weissman Memorial NJPA Award two years in a row.

Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

{{description}}

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

Followed notifications

Please log in to use this feature

Welcome to the discussion.

Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language.PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated.Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything.Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism
that is degrading to another person.Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts.Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness
accounts, the history behind an article.

PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account.

Watch this discussion.Stop watching this discussion.

(0) comments

Welcome to the discussion.

Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language.PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated.Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything.Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism
that is degrading to another person.Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts.Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness
accounts, the history behind an article.